Meet Tom, My Hot Mess of an Online Date!

In my online dating career, I have come across guys that fall all over the ‘ready to be dating’ spectrum. Some have been practically drooling they want a girlfriend so badly. I can practically smell the desperation wafting off of them. Then there are the gentlemen that act as if they are almost doing me a favor by going on a date because they so clearly would rather be somewhere else, anywhere else. Then there are the men that really don’t know what they want or where they want to be. They have probably come to online dating because someone suggested to them that it would be a good idea but they are really not at all ready. I had one guy that was still sleeping in the same bed with his not-yet-ex-wife and was shocked when I told him he had no business being on a dating site. Go figure. But then there was Tom, my hot mess of a date. Just like in baseball, there should be no crying while out on a date. It is a bit of a love buzzkill.

Tom emailed me first and I was immediately intrigued. He had a professional job, was a single dad, had excellent taste in books, music and movies and, hitting me where I was weak, had a shaved head. I have a fondness for bald men. We exchanged a few emails and he seemed like a relatively cool guy from what I could tell. In one of my messages, I mentioned that I had a Nintendo Wii and Tom immediately suggested coming over and going Wii bowling for our first date. Excuse me? Had he just invited himself to my house for our initial meeting? Had he been living in a dating cave? I could make it easy for him and make sure my crawl space was cleaned out so he would have somewhere to store my body.

Tom seemed cool, though, and I decided to just chalk up his gaffe to being relatively new to online dating. I told him that I would be up for Wii sometime in the future but maybe, just to keep it easy, we could meet for a cocktail some night, in public, for our first date. In fact, I told him, I was free that very evening. Thanksgiving was coming up and I knew that my schedule was going to be insane so I threw it out there and, it turned out, Tom was also free. We picked a place in downtown Seattle and, just like that, I was going from having a strange man coming over to my house to ‘play games’ to having a drink and, a girl could hope, a decent conversation. Things were looking up!

Tom had arrived first and he stood up as I walked to the table. Oh, wow, his pictures online had been very flattering. In real life, he was not so cute. At all. He was kind of pudgy, had horrible skin and, when he shook my hand, he felt sweaty and clammy. Oh, boy, it was time for a drink and, luckily, the waitress magically appeared. I ordered and, when it was Tom’s turn, I was in for another surprise. Tom, it appeared, had a very profound stutter. Per my, quite possibly ill-advised, rule, I had not talked to Tom on the phone so I had absolutely no idea. I was trying to not to feel like a jerk but, oh my, it was really severe.

I figured that Tom was just maybe really nervous and that was making talking difficult so I tried to loosen things up and asked him about his job. All I knew from his profile was that he worked in management in the healthcare industry. It turned out that Tom was in records management and maintained files at a local hospital. He went on to say that he hated his job something fierce and would quit if it weren’t for the child support payments he was about to take on. He was about to be a ‘poor man’ and he looked absolutely miserable as he talked about it. Sweet lord. It was time to change the subject and fast. Sports were usually a safe bet so I asked him about his feelings on the NFL season thus far and, for the love of mankind, Tom immediately looked even more depressed. About football? How could that be? The conversation gods were decidedly not on my side.

Tom explained that he had been really into football and playing sports but, about a year previously, he had suffered a stroke. What, what, what? He wasn’t even forty years old! He went on to tell me about a rare medical condition that he had that had caused the stroke and the horrible experience he had gone through and was still enduring. He had almost died. I didn’t even know what to say. Tom was quickly becoming the saddest guy I had ever met. In a last ditch effort to try and make our date just the littlest bit happy, I asked Tom about his kids. Children make people smile! Parents love nothing more than talking about their kids! That was when Tom started crying. Shit.

Apparently the separation and impending divorce had been very hard on Tom’s kids and, as he told me about it, a couple of tears rolled down his cheeks. He was not sure that he was doing the right thing, his wife still apparently wanted to be married and, as he put his head in hands, he told me that he wasn’t sure he shouldn’t give things another chance. I will admit that, at that point, my feelings of pity turned into feelings of pretty strong annoyance. Was it possible that Tom could in any way be less ready to be on a date? The phrase “Hot mess. Hot mess,” kept repeating in my head. I didn’t remember putting ‘professional therapist’ in my profile as an occupation or a hobby.

Luckily for me, Tom’s tears dried up at the same time we finished our drinks and I quickly started to gather my things. The time for the depression-fest that my date had turned into was going to come to an end. Tom walked me to a car, gave me a sad smile and a hug, and thanked me for coming to have a drink with him. I was expecting him to somehow acknowledge the fact that he had cried in his cocktail but, instead, he just told me to have a good night. I thanked the dating gods the whole way home that Tom hadn’t asked me to go out again. He might have burst into tears if I said no.

I got online as soon as I got home and Tom had already emailed me thanking me again for coming out with him and saying what a pleasure it was to meet me. He then asked what my schedule looked like so we could make a date for our Wii bowling. WHAT? Was he high? Did he not remember the crying and lamenting about saving his marriage? Did he have split personalities? I was so aghast that I didn’t write Tom back that night. The next morning, I had another email from Tom telling me that he was sorry, but he had thought about it and he wanted to give his marriage another try. It was probably not a good idea for him to come over and bowl. Really? You think?

Thank goodness Tom didn’t mind having a conversation with himself so I didn’t have to be the jerk and tell him that there was no way in hell we were going on another date. Tom needed to spend his free time seeing a fleet of therapists and not trying to go out on dates. Hot mess, hot mess, hot mess. Indeed.

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